Bottom Line The GPS-equipped Fujifilm Finepix F600EXR shows a lot of promise on paper, packing a long 15x zoom lens into a compact body. But the GPS doesn't work as well as we'd like, and images from this superzoom camera are very noisy in low light.
The Fujifilm Finepix F600EXR ($349.95 direct) is a well-designed digital camera. It adopts the standard form factor of other compact superzooms, but throws in a few odd angles and lines that cause it to stand out from the crowd. The 16-megapixel shooter is loaded with a 15x (24-360mm equivalent) zoom lens, which is quite impressive when you consider its size. Despite capturing sharp images, the camera doesn't perform as well in low light as our Editors' Choice Nikon Coolpix S9100. The F600EXR also suffers from a finicky GPS and a flash release button that can be somewhat temperamental. Its Raw shooting capability may appeal to enthusiasts, but they are likely to be disappointed with the camera's shortcomings.
Design and Features
Available only in black, the F600EXR is a compact point-and-shoot with a few flourishes not found on most cameras. It's physically identical to the Finepix F550EXR ($349.95, 3 stars), the difference being that the F600EXR uses a CMOS image sensor while its twin sibling uses a Super CCD. The camera offers a very comfortable, though slight, handgrip that makes it more comfortable for righties to hold. Its mode dial is angled, which allows for a thinner design and comfortable adjustment of settings. The camera measures 2.4 by 4 by 1.2 inches (HWD) and weighs 7.7 ounces, almost identical in size to the GPS-equipped 14x Canon PowerShot SX230 HS ($329.99, 4 stars). It is relatively tiny when compared to larger-form-factor superzooms, like the 36x-equipped Nikon Coolpix P500 ($399.95, 4 stars), a comparative behemoth that weighs over a pound and measures 2.3 by 4.1 by 1.3 inches.
Rear controls include a 4-way scroll wheel, a dedicated video-recording button, and a function key that brings up a menu of common adjustment options. Controls are one of the camera's strong points, as they are placed in a sensible manner and give you quick access to settings. There is one issue though: The button that raises the pop-up flash requires a firm press to work, and was intermittently unresponsive in my tests. At times it worked with a light tap, and at others it required an overly firm press.
The menu design is a little less elegant than the layout of the physical controls. Hitting the Menu button brings up a text menu with three pages of settings. It's easy to get lost, as settings that should be able to be changed quickly—such as the metering mode and white balance—are buried in deeper pages. If you shoot in EXR mode, you have the option of choosing between three specialized shooting modes that optimize images so that they will have the most amount of detail, least amount of noise in low light, or most dynamic range.
The large 3-inch LCD is packed with 460k dots so that images appear bright and sharp. In very sunny conditions it can be a bit hard to see, but doesn't get to the point where it is unusable. Even though it's sharper than screens found on lower-end cameras, it is only half the resolution of the 920k-dot screen that adorns the Nikon S9100. Unlike the S9100, the F600EXR does have built-in GPS—but it has some issues. It took me a solid ten minutes in the relatively open skies of suburban New Jersey to acquire a signal, which is troublesome news geotagging enthusiasts. It took about the same amount of time in Manhattan—and photos I snapped prior to it relocating a signal indicated that I was still in the Garden State, not on Park Avenue as was the actual case. The camera does have an always-on GPS mode that will look for a signal even when you're not taking photos, but this is disabled by default as it can place excessive drain on the battery. The Casio Exilim EX-H20G ($349.99, 3.5 stars), which can keep track of your position even as a GPS signal fades, remains the best superzoom option for geotaggers.
Performance and Conclusions
As far as speed, the camera took a full 2.5 seconds to start and snap a photo and required 1.1 seconds between shots. The shutter lag score, at just 0.1 second, is impressive, and ranks it up with some pricier interchangeable lens cameras. To compare, the Nikon Coolpix S9100 superzoom, took only 1.6 seconds to start, but recorded a 0.5-second shutter lag and 1.8 seconds between shots. The F600EXR was bested by the Canon PowerShot Elph 510 HS ($349.99, 3.5 stars) in terms of recycle time—that camera was able to rattle off a shot every 0.6 second.
I used the Imatest software suite to test the sharpness and image noise present in images captured by the F600EXR. The camera did quite well in terms of sharpness, scoring 1,981 lines per picture height using a center-weighted analysis of our test chart. A score of 1,800 is considered to be quite good, although the Canon SX230 HS bested the Fuji here—that camera was able to resolve 2,195 lines. Sharpness aside, there is a major issue with the images captured by the Fuji. When shot at its widest setting, excessive vignetting is evident in the corners of the image. The Raw files shot by the camera do not correct for this, so a bright blue sky becomes a black semicircle at the edge of an image. (See the slideshow for an example.) If you shoot in JPEG format, the camera does counteract for the light falloff and for a bit of fisheye distortion by flattening the image. Evidence of the processing remains in the finished photo, as even the corners of the final JPEG are dimmer than the center.
Imatest also measures the level of noise in images captured by a camera at various ISO settings. When you increase ISO, the camera's sensitivity to light increases, but image noise does as well. When an image is composed of more than 1.5 percent noise it is considered to be overly grainy. The F600EXR is only able to shoot clean images through ISO 200, a very low number. You'll have no trouble getting good shots on a bright, but overcast day or in a well-lit interior, but photos shot in most homes, outdoors in shadow, or on dreary days will require you to set the ISO higher. By ISO 400 the F600EXR is already recording photos with 1.9 percent noise, and that number jumps to more than 3 percent by ISO 3200. The Nikon S9100 is able to keep noise under 1.5 percent through ISO 3200, making it the best low-light superzoom we've tested.
Video is recorded in 1080p30 QuickTime format with stereo sound. The quality is just ok—although details are sharply captured, the finished footage suffers from an overall jitter. You can zoom in and out while recording, but the sound of the lens moving is picked up on the soundtrack. You can hook the camera directly to an HDTV via its mini HDMI output port, or to a computer via a proprietary USB interface. The memory card slot supports SD, SDHC, and SDXC cards.
The F600EXR is a very pretty camera on the outside, and is capable of capturing some sharp photos, but it has a few too many flaws and foibles to earn an unconditional recommendation. Enthusiasts are always happy to see a camera that supports Raw, but the level of distortion and vignetting present in wide-angle images makes it impractical to shoot in this mode. The GPS is slow to pick up a signal, making the Canon PowerShot SX230 HS or Casio Exilim EX-H20G, both of which are available for the same price, better options for geotaggers. Images are sharp, but low light performance is dismal, especially compared to our Editors' Choice Nikon Coolpix S9100—which lacks GPS, but has a longer zoom and is $30 less expensive.
09.20
Posted in: Camera,Fujifilm
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